Hacker Cinema
Pumping Iron
1977 · Film · documentary · 86 min
Directed by Robert Fiore, George Butler
Amateur and professional bodybuilders prepare for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests as five-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young Lou Ferrigno.
5 positive1 negative1 mixed5 neutralfrom 12 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
12 comments on Hacker News
Just watch the documentary Pumping iron. And do exactly what Arnold says. While in the shower, shout like a gorilla, the higher your arms are, the higher the pitch should be.
Lots of good suggestions here already, so a few lesser-known ones I've enjoyed:
Typeface - follows the volunteers at the Hamilton Wood Type museum. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1207998/?ref_=nv_sr_1 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface_(film)
Dogtown and the Z Boys. On the birth of professional skateboarding. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275309/?ref_=nv_sr_2 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtown_and_Z-Boys
Riding Giants. From the director of Dogtown. This one focuses on the development of big wave surfing. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389326/?ref_=nv_sr_1 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riding_Giants
Pumping Iron. Follows Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno as they attempt to win the 1975 Mr Olympia competition. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076578/?ref_=nv_sr_1 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumping_Iron
Well, to be fair, Arnold comes from an earlier era. Whenever I look at his Encyclopedia I think it was maybe useful then but not now. But Pumping Iron is just an awesome movie.
There's a shit ton of useful information now written by people who want you to learn. Arnold had his day but this is the golden age.
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/
Agree. Pumping Iron was the marketing piece that launched an industry. The "better than sex" quote still comes to mind, and I haven't seen the movie in decades.
He's also an extremely weasely manipulator and an egomaniac.
In the documentary "Pumping Iron" he manipulates an entire family, who trusted him as a friend. Oh, and he also boasts about this in front of the camera.
I would consider his autobiography to be a brilliant marketing piece (with the positive and negative connotations of the "marketing" concept), although of course this is personal opinion, and I doubt this will be ever fact-checked to dis/prove it.
edit: of course, I don't imply he is devoid of good/inspiring traits.
Actually if you watch Raw Iron, the making of Pumping Iron, the shirt stealing joke was set up for the documentary and wasn't by Arnold. It was done as a docu-drama, not a documentary. Pumping is like cumming, missing dad's funeral, etc weren't true.
Very important factoid!
I remember watching Pumping Iron, and he was massive alright. And he's 6'2". After he stopped competing, he slimmed down for the movies.
In general though, you're right. Nobody to this day has looked as good as he did.
I've had a couple of trainers -- the kind with degrees in sports-medicine, not the kind that were selling cell-phones in the mall last week -- say that Arnie was the single worst thing to happen to modern fitness.
Their complaint was that his genetics are exceptionally rare. That very few people, like 1 out of 10,000, could ever hope to come anywhere close to achieving the same physique. That by becoming a sort of fitness idol he set up everybody else up for disappointment and often giving up because it is literally impossible for the rest of us to do what he did.
As an aside, if you ever watch his first movie, a documentary of sorts called Pumping Iron, he says that smoking pot was a part of his regimen. He even lights up on camera.
I think you’re taking it too literally. In the movie “Pumping Iron,” Serge Nubret says to Arnold Schwarzenneger at the 1975 Mr. Universe competition, “You are unbeatable!”
Did he really mean forever? Just that competition? Until Arnold retired? I think the expression “unbeatable” always means “Under the current circumstances, roughly now-ish, for the foreseeable future, &c.” If you take it literally, there would be no use for the word.
Saying “Arnold is Unbeatable” in 1975 meant that the current crop of body builders couldn’t beat him, that either he would grow old, or retire (which he did, and then un-retire to win again), or some new young phenom would come out of nowhere.
Saying “IBM 370 is unbeatable” in 1979 meant simply that nothing at that time would beat it, that only time or the unforeseeable would unseat it, which is what happened.
Maybe, if you can see it done in movies like "Pumping Iron" or "Blood and Guts" -> "meathead", otherwise not.
Okay, that kicks ass. You got my email address; I can't wait to use the product.
1. You got on my good side when I saw young Arnie. That's awesome. I hope if you need permission you get it, because it would be a shame to lose him. I got an instant flashback to "Pumping Iron" and how charismatic and inspiring he is in that movie (despite being a dick.)
2. I got briefly annoyed at the initial screenshot. It's obviously a screenshot, but it contains instructions to close the locker door, and I just could not stop myself from spending thirty seconds trying to close the locker door even though I knew it wouldn't work. It's hard to explain, but I just had to try to close the locker door before I could move on. I bet some people will be legitimately confused, too. Screenshots are okay as long as they don't contain instructions telling you to interact with them!
3. Clicking through, looks cool, looks cool, being sold, and then BAM I'm completely sold on the screenshot that shows I can earn stuff for my friends and vice-versa. For many people it's a lot harder to let other people down than it is to let themselves down. I immediately thought of a certain friend who's a rather extreme case, but it applies to me, too. My first breakthrough in fitness, when I went from a wannabe exerciser to a guy who actually does work out a few times a week, was when I had a roommate who recruited me as her running partner. Social pressure, not wanting to send my friend out running alone when she was asking for my support, pulled me through a lot of tough times when I really, really didn't want to work out, and then when I moved out a year later I found I was, for the first time in my life, capable of pushing through those tough times by myself. I bet your product will accomplish the same thing for a lot of people -- you MUST do this!
Watch "pumping Iron" - an old documentary following Arnold Schwarzenegger on his quest to become Mr. Universe. Besides the absolute hilarity of seeing a young Arnold pumping his muscles you get a glimpse of why he won mr. universe 6 times, became one of the greatest actors of Hollywood despite the obvious lack of talent, and is now Governor of California.
He is so determined that you won't believe it. So he wins.